History of Canada’s national healthcare
Doctor protests accompanied Canada’s first imposition of government control in Saskatchewan, and the initial nationalization in 1962. The socialists overcame the protests by buying off doctors who, in protest, had closed their offices for 23 days.
The eugenecists who promoted it.
Thomas Douglas, who nationalized Canada’s healthcare, advocated moral and psycological screenings for marriage and sterilization for unfit individuals. There was a sterilization statute in Saskatchewan in the 1930s.
Canadian system remains overwhelmingly popular.
Since it is illegal to use prices to reduce demand. The only available system for rationing is queue-ing. Median wait time between referral by general practioner to treatment in 2010 was 18.2 weeks. It varied by specialty and province.
The longest was for orthopedic surgery was 36.7 weeks.
In New Brunswick, the worst offender, median was 24.6 weeks.
The Supreme Court of Canada acknowledged the wait for knee replacements is often over a year, and that many patients die on waiting lists for cardiac care.
Physicians get paid according to how many patients they see. As a result, is common to double and triple book.
The average wait times for human access to
ultra sound — 31 days
ct scan — 30 days
mri — 69 days
pet scans — completely unavailable
The average wait times for animal access to
ct scans — a few hours
mri — a few hours
In 2008, Forbes magazine: there were more MRIs in Pittsburg than in Canada.
Despite this, there was opposition to a group of doctors attempting to set up private MRI clinics because they didn’t want anybody “jumping the queue.”
After the first private MRI clinic opened in 1993, Prime Minister Jean Chretien vowed to end funding to any province which allowed such private clinics to continue existing. Thomas Douglas’s CCF and the union of public employees led the opposition.
More seriously ill patients have a harder time finding an acute care hospital bed in Canada than moderately ill patients because of perverted incentives which put emphasis on cost.
To control costs, government attempts to restrict the number of Canadian doctors contributing to the doctor shortage.
Despite this, their system remains popular. Substantial propaganda contributes to this.